Whose idea was this? That's my question. I want to know whose bright idea it was to buy the
rights to a piece of required reading for first-year college students, update it for modern
audiences, transfer the story into the world of magazine travel writing, throw Jack Black into the
lead role, film it in schlocky 3D and dumb everything down so that the film could reach its target
demographic of 10-year-olds.

What exactly was the thought process here? Does Jonathan Swift have some sort of cachet
among the third-grade set that I don't know about? Were there hoards of elementary school
children clamoring for a new cinematic interpretation of this "Gulliver" fellow and his travels to
lands terrible and strange? Did 20th Century Fox think these tots would be sitting on Santa's lap
begging for the newest Brobdingnag lunchboxes and Lilliputian action figures?

I know nothing about the genesis of this project, but the very
idea reeks of studio idiocy. Hey, people like special effects, right? THIS movie could have
special effects with all the different-sized people in it! It'd be just like 'Lord of the Rings!' And
hey, kids like Jack Black, right? He'd make a credible conquering hero and romantic lead or
Amanda Peet, right? And hey, we're making boatloads of extra cash stealing people's money
with hiked-up ticket prices for terrible 3D technology, so let's go ahead and throw that in there,
too. Those dumb kids will LOVE to see random crap flying at the screen.

But seriously, folks. This was misguided from the start. What possible appeal did the studio
think this package would have? To clarify: I actually have no issue at all with modernizing the
story. They can modernize any story they want for all I care. There have been successful
modernizations of Shakespeare, Homer, the Bible, you name it - Swift is fair game.

But this? Who thought that this would actually work?

Well, let me tell you exactly how they try to make it work. So we start on Jack Black, lowly mail
room employee and "Guitar Hero" afficionado. He looks and acts the way you would expect any
Jack Black protagonist to look in a movie that only cares about his star power. (Whereas Black
can actually give good performances when the filmmakers care about the role itself - see: High
Fidelity, King Kong, The School of Rock.)

Anyway, Gulliver delivers the mail at a national magazine and
has had an intense crush on the travel editor, Darcy (Peet), for years. But he's never had the
courage to ask her out. You're never going to believe this, but Peet has secretly [and
inexplicably] had a thing for Gulliver, too.

So when Darcy suddenly has a Bermuda Triangle story that needs covering, it's only natural that
she would allow Gulliver to write the story. Gulliver's very clever, you see - he plagiarizes a
few online travel guides as his "writing sample" and wows the editor. Mission accomplished.

Naturally, the magazine sends Gulliver unaccompanied out into the ocean on a boat. At this
point, you realize the filmmakers just didn't even care. "Mr. Director, we've somehow gotta get
Gulliver from the New York mainland to Lilliput. But HOW?" / "Meh, let's just say the
company sends a person without any boating experience out on his own boat into the ocean. The
audiences will be too dumb to question us, right? Right."

Anyone at all familiar with the Swift story pretty much knows the drill from here. The film
spends most of its time with the Lilliputians but, curiously, feels the need to have one isolated
sequence on Brobdingnag, where instead of being a giant among tiny people, he's a tiny person
among one giant little girl who enslaves Gulliver in her dollhouse. What is the purpose of this
sequence? I haven't the vaguest idea.

The problem with Gulliver's Travels isn't that it's a broad, modern adaptation of a famous old
story - it's that it's simply a lazy piece of filmmaking. The idea was lazy and ill-conceived, the
approach to the modernization was lazy, the incessant pop-culture references are lazy, the special
effects are lazy and the film feels no need to earn anything.

Gulliver and Darcy are destined to be together not because of
anything that actually occurs in the movie, but because they're the romantic leads and that's
what romantic leads are supposed to do - get together. Heroes defeat villains not because of any
interesting or amusing storytelling or plot wrinkles, but because that's what heroes are supposed
to do - defeat villains.

I'd be up for seeing a legitimate Gulliver's Travels modernization one of these days. Knock
yourselves out, Hollywood. All I ask is that you give us a little effort next time. Seeing this
version, it's clear everyone knows they're putting out a piece of junk. And they couldn't care
less.